


Listening With The Heart

by HalfshellVenus



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Community: 60_minute_fics, Community: fanfic100, Community: philosophy_20, M/M, Male Slash, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-19
Updated: 2007-06-19
Packaged: 2018-08-12 22:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7951915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfshellVenus/pseuds/HalfshellVenus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After escaping from Fox River, Lincoln learns who to be with Michael in a future of their own making.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listening With The Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to [](http://deadbeat-nymph.livejournal.com/profile)[deadbeat_nymph](http://deadbeat-nymph.livejournal.com/), who waits so patiently for Michael/Lincoln slash. Hope this helps!

x-x-x-x-x

The first day they drove alone, Lincoln turned on the radio. He'd rarely heard music in those longs months on Death Row, and the few times he had, he couldn't choose what it was.

In the car alone with Michael, he could skip through radio stations like anyone else— like a man with choices and a future. The novelty wore off as they drove further west, when most of the choices became country music and religion, but by then, it didn't matter— the music was humming inside Lincoln instead.

They'd talk from time-to-time, sometimes planning or just random comments, but mostly there were open-ended questions, like _What if_ s and _Why_ s. Lincoln couldn't remember talking with Michael that way since back when Michael had been little and had wanted to know just _everything_.

It seemed so long ago—lifetimes in the past. Things had gotten so bad so quickly after that. They'd survived each other's near absence after their mother died—the terrible Children's Home years—and then stumbled through the routine of duty after Lincoln got a job to support them both and they lived in a crappy apartment near Michael's school. _How's your homework?_ and _When will you be home?_ were the conversations of that period: terse and joyless. When Lincoln got Lisa pregnant, he started to be gone more often and they spoke even less.

And after that, the next part was Lincoln and drugs and jail and more drugs again. Everything became silence and anger, blame and guilt. They had their dynamic—Fuckup and Fixer—and they lost the middle ground. They lost the feeling of being brothers along with it.

Now, with their future ahead of them, it was time to start over. They were free to be anyone but themselves, thanks to the bounty on their heads.

They'd already begun the journey into the forbidden territory of being lovers—the largest step of all, the one that as much as anything demanded leaving the past behind. This next step would be balancing two people as one and holding to it when the world said otherwise—or when the protests came from within themselves.

By now, Lincoln had nearly stopped hearing the voice that reminded him this was his _brother_ when he kissed Michael. And he knew that Michael didn't hear that kind of voice at all.

_For almost as long as I can remember,_ Michael had said back in Fox River. That was how long Michael had loved Lincoln too much to admit. It was why Michael would save him or destroy himself trying.

That first kiss had shaken everything Lincoln ever thought he knew about Michael, or even about himself. A lifetime of taboos fell in the heat of that heartfelt kiss—his lips seared by the lust-sharpened thrill that should have been awkwardness or disgust, but so surprisingly was _not_.

Everything Michael had just said became instantly true with that kiss. They were bound by something even stronger than family, bound by the call-and-answer yearning of one spirit for another. They were contrasts perfectly combined.

Michael's soul-deep ache for Lincoln filled the kiss with purity and passion. It illuminated the history between them with an entirely different kind of light.

Filled with the knowledge of Michael's want and need, Lincoln kissed him back and wanted everything in return—no matter what that made them.

So here they were now: free, beyond all hope or possibility. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Lincoln had narrowly escaped his death sentence. The two of them were forced to run from their pasts now, forced to become new people in a new country where the law couldn't find them.

It would have been terrible, except that it was somehow perfect. The past hadn't done them many favors. Lincoln was free to live now and they both were free to love.

Riding here beside Michael, Lincoln was already learning new things about them both. He'd already learned from all they'd been through that Michael was far tougher and braver than he'd realized; he wondered if Michael knew that about himself. He was learning a new way of being silent with Michael—one not caused by anger or withdrawing inside himself, but something more peaceful: listening with the heart.

He was learning the depths of Michael's love for him—more than loyalty or forgiveness or anything so ordinary, this was love that saw inside him and embraced every facet and flaw.

Love beyond judgment—love beyond desire.

Lincoln found his love for _Michael_ demanded that he become worthy of that. He finally felt he could…

"What're you thinking about?" Michael's voice broke through Lincoln's reflections, a smile teasing the corner of his mouth.

"You. Me. Us," Lincoln answered. "The good stuff, of course."

"Any conclusions?" Michael asked softly.

Lincoln looked over at him then, saw what might have been worry buried under that even tone. "Best idea ever," he grinned, squeezing Michael's leg in reassurance.

Michael's face lit up, and the sight filled Lincoln with such happiness his body could hardly contain it.

"I feel a stop coming up soon, somewhere private." His fingers stroked along Michael's thigh.

"Got something you want to discuss?" Michael voice was so wonderfully, meltingly smooth.

"No," Lincoln said. "Got something I want to show you."

Five miles later, he did.

 

_\------ fin -----_  



End file.
